Your pen, phone & front door work as they weren’t made by Govt – imagine what would happen if they took over railways
When British Rail was a government-run business it was not pretty
A GREAT many people have got it into their heads that Britain’s railways will only improve if the entire network is nationalised and run by the Government.
Really? You think the Government would do a better job?
Why? Because of the way they allowed infected blood to kill 3,000 people?
Because of the way they’ve run the Post Office? Because of the seven-year wait to see a doctor?
Or does it have something to do with the quick and efficient way they deal with potholes and immigration and agriculture?
Last year, farmers were given new rules stating what they must do if they wanted government grants and subsidies.
So the farmers made their long-term plans and then, this week, they were told that the rules have changed.
Can you imagine, then, what would happen if the people making these decisions were allowed to run the railways?
“The train now standing at platform six is the 14.35 to Crewe.”
And then, after it sets off: “Welcome on board the non-stop service to Glasgow.”
I’m not being party political here. Labour and Conservative governments are both equally useless.
I literally wouldn’t let either of them run a bring ’n’ buy stall at a village fete.
Private enterprise is the only answer, always. Look at everything around you now. Your Biro. Your phone. Your front door. Your furniture. Your cooker.
All of these things work properly because they weren’t made by the government.
At this point, I was going to ask you to imagine what your car would be like if it was made by the government. But we don’t have to imagine.
We just have to cast our minds back to the Austin Allegro and the Morris Marina and the Triumph TR7.
And if you are able to remember these motoring horrors, then you will also remember what British Rail was like when it was a government-run business. Even the dirt had dirt on it.
I can still remember eating a British Rail sandwich. The bread had the texture of a wet vest and the filling, I’m fairly sure, was whatever the workforce at the government’s sandwich factory No34 had been able to find in the bin.
‘Price of failure’
Yes, the people who operate the trains now take all the fares and, instead of spending them on improvements to the service, use them to buy a bigger superyacht and a better helicopter.
But if the government was in charge, they wouldn’t spend any money on improvements to the service either, because they’d need all the income to pay for diversity and sustainability training.
So what’s the solution? It’s tricky, because when you want a new phone you can choose from a range of different models, but that doesn’t apply with a train.
If you need to be in York at 4pm, you are forced to use the train that will get to York by 4pm.
Sure, you might be able to find a better train which has better coffee, but it’s not much use if it’s going to Hereford.
You don’t want to be in Hereford. You want to be in York.
The only solution is to keep the network private and allow the bosses to make money. But they need to know that the price of failure is severe.
Basically, if they are good, they make a ton of cash — and if they aren’t, we burn their houses down.
Race to the bottom
FOR some time, I’ve suspected that the bosses at Chelsea have had a bet on with bosses at the Conservative Party over who could change leader most often.
Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak versus Conte, Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter and Pochettino.
At the beginning of the week, Chelsea pulled a blinder and let Pochettino go.
But the Tories weren’t to be outdone and decided to call an election which will, in all probability, wipe them out completely.
Your move, Chelsea. What’s it going to be? A voluntary move to League 2?
My plan barned bridges
THREE years ago, when my farm was being battered over the head by planners at West Oxfordshire District Council, I became so desperate that I went to London to see the minister in charge of this sort of thing: Michael Gove.
I explained the problem. Farmers were being told by central government to diversify if they wanted to stay in business.
But if they tried, they were stopped by the planners in local government.
Gove pulled all the right faces and made all the right noises and I left knowing full well nothing would come of it.
But blow me down with a feather, it did. And this week farmers were told they could turn their disused barns into gyms or workshops or even houses without the need for planning permission.
That’s great news for everyone in the business.
Except me. Because to help win the battle to keep my farm shop, I gave up the rights to convert my barn.
I think that’s called taking one for the team.
Hogging time off to grieve for dead pets
FRENCH workers are demanding the right to take a day off if their pet dies.
This assumes they were at work in the first place, which seems unlikely.
But I can see a few issues with the idea. Because what’s to stop someone buying 500 goldfish?
Or a pig farm? If I’d had a day off last year every time one of my piglets died, I wouldn’t be back at work until about 2067.
YEARS and years ago, a charmingly bonkers actress called Sarah Miles (Ryan’s Daughter, Blow-Up etc) announced that she liked to drink her own pee.
We all smiled sweetly and thought she was just being her usual eccentric self. But it seems she was just ahead of the curve.
Because today, thanks to Thames Water, we are ALL drinking our own urine.
THE Tories say that if they win the election they will introduce boot camps for wannabe delivery drivers.
Great. Maybe the DPD guy who comes to my house most weeks will learn what the word “fragile” means.
But there is one problem. The Tories won’t win the election.
Which means I shall continue to receive a weekly supply of stuff that’s pre-broken.
Hairdo was on the fly
MANY people will be wondering how they would react to severe turbulence.
Well, I’ve been there, so I already know.
I was in a plane that had been built in Russia in the Fifties and used by the Angolan Air Force before being bought by a ramshackle airline in Cuba, and we were flying into Havana when it was struck by lightning.
This caused it to turn upside down and start plummeting towards Earth.
So how did I feel knowing I was about to die? Well, here’s the funny thing.
Instead of air vents, there were little Pifco-style fans above each seat and, as the plane turned over, my hair got caught in the blades.
So that’s what I was thinking as the engines screamed and the pilot tried to regain control: “This is really annoying.”